A little shift
by Malicean
Summary: In Man of Steel, the launch of Kal-El's escape pod provides a distraction at a crucial point in the fight between Jor-El and Zod, plus a motivation for the latter to lose all inhibitions concerning deadly force, and ultimately results in Jor-El's death. What if the timing of the launch was off by a few seconds …? And why does everyone forget about the THIRD adult in the room?
1. Prologue

Lara Lor-Van prided herself on doing some of her best work under pressure, but preparing the launch of her baby boy towards a (hopefully better) new world would have been stressful enough on its own, never mind the battle suddenly raging across Krypton, and she _really_ could have done without said battle getting close up and personal within the room!

Jor-El, her brilliant, reckless, gentle Jor, put up more of a fight than General Zod and his men obviously expected from the science caste, and though his gun went flying when she spared a quick look away from the launch procedures, her husband was holding his own against the general. When she could spare another glance, Zod was on his hands and knees and Jor held his weapon to the general's back.

Lara would have turned back to the launch – she was seconds away from the final command – had she not caught Zod close his eyes briefly at the click of the gun touching his armor, and when he opened them again, the general was clearly about to go down fighting. Her gasp drew her husband's attention, and when Zod whirled and stabbed at Jor with the blade concealed in his gauntlet, the gun discharged, caught the general across the shoulder and threw off his aim. Both men stumbled back, apart from each other, and then, simultaneously, went down.

Heedless of the drama unfolding around it, the phantom drive of the escape pod chose that very moment to enter the final stage of the launch, and Lara, for all that her heart was screaming to run to Jor and check him for injury, took the extra second to input the last command. She would have loved to follow Kal's ascent until the clouds swallowed him, to draw out her last look at her son for as long as she could, but as soon as her finger left the control panel, she was running.

Throwing herself down next to her husband, she discovered a deep slice across his lower ribs that bled freely, but the blank stare on Jor's face was just his semi-conscious attention riveted by the rising pod.

With a half-sob of relief, Lara turned to order the robots to bring her supplies to dress the wound, and found a scorched and semi-dazed, but grim general scowling down on her.

"Your son, Lara, where have you sent him?"

"His name is Kal, son of El!" she snapped at Zod, too furious with that would-be killer of her child and husband to think of the danger he might still pose. "And he's beyond your reach!"

The general scowled some more but then he turned to leave, and Lara finally could concentrate on the important things.

She had just finished staunching the bleeding, and was about to coax Jor into a sitting position where she could reach the wound better to seal it properly, when the commotion on the landing platform spilled inside, again.

More soldiers, these apparently loyal to the Council, streamed in and secured the two men her husband had shot earlier.

And then they turned their guns on Jor and announced, "Jor-El. For breaching the Genesis Chamber and theft of the Registry of Citizens, you are under arrest."

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

When the Codex could not be found on the premises and neither Jor-El nor Lara – nor, as it happened, General Zod – would admit to any knowledge of its whereabouts, theft quickly escalated into high treason. And as the Council could not fathom two independent incidents of high treason occurring in parallel, they were equally quick to pronounce Jor a co-conspirator to the mutinous general.

It didn't help their case that both men used their last words to the Council on decrying the foolishness of that august body yet again, at one point standing shoulder to shoulder and arguing with the same desperate passion about Krypton's impending doom.

The verdict was, consequently, unsurprising. "General Zod. For the crimes of murder and high treason, the Council has sentenced you and your fellow insurgents, including the scientist Jor-El, to 300 cycles of somatic reconditioning."

Jor faced the judgement pale but decorous; Zod spat at the High Eminence, disdainful of the Council's cowardice in trying to pass a death sentence without getting their hands dirty.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Lara's involvement might have gotten ignored in all the turmoil, but with her child gone there was nothing to keep her from her husband's side, in the most literal sense, not even Jor's pleading.

Even if, as the freezing cold of the suspended animation crawled up her body, it hurt worse than giving birth to Kal had.


	2. Broken pieces

Waking up is …_ jarring_.

Unexpected and rough, like getting shaken awake with a jolt that goes beyond the physical.

When the ice melts away they are back in realspace, and before them lies Krypton in her final death throes. Their home reduced to a maelstrom of glowing rubble.

Lara blindly grabs for Jor, seeking an anchor in this madness, and he half-turns towards her, holding her awkwardly. Peripherally she becomes aware that she is still the only person aboard that is unshackled, but it's a distant awareness.

The woman with silent tears on her face gets a little more notice, as does the general when he steps close enough to put a hand on said woman's shoulder, but everything is still in some sort of haze until Zod finds his voice.

"Was sticking to _arguments _with the Council worth this, Jor-El?" he asks, and though the hollowness of his tone takes the bite out of the accusation, Lara can feel her husband flinch under her arms.

If General Zod can hold grudges beyond the death of their planet, she decides, then so can she!

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

She cannot deny that the general is a skilled leader in a crisis, though.

Lara freed Jor once the shock had faded a bit, and Jor, moving almost mechanically, freed Zod, and then there is no sense in holding back, really. The teary woman _– commander, of the House of Ul, but Lara can't recall her name, right now_ – startles violently, in the literal sense, when Lara first reaches for her, but gives the barest nod of thanks once she is free.

When all the forces are gathered, the general declares that they will see if they are meant to starve amongst the ruins of their planet or if there is a chance to live on, for Krypton.

When it turns out that there_ is_ a chance, however minuscule, he skillfully uses the bait of the impossible technical challenge to draw Jor into the effort.

It's not that Lara is absolutely opposed to the idea of living a while longer – _Kal is out there, and living on might mean to see her child again, one day!_ – but she despises Zod for the way he uses everyone as means to his own ends.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

It takes Jor a full ten days of ignoring his unhealed injury before he collapses.

By sheer luck Lara is within sight, sees him rock back from the uncomfortable crouch half inside some piece of machinery and go suddenly, horribly limp.

Under the circumstances, it's the final straw. Her first reaction is to scream – and the sound sends people running.

The first to arrive is that big frontline fighter Lara never bothered to learn the name of, but his immediate reaction forces her to acknowledge that _'protect' _is as essential to the military caste as _'think'_ is to the science one.

The huge man scoops up Jor like he weights nothing and carries him to the nook they deemed their 'cabin' without demur, and while Lara fights to clean out the infection as thoroughly as their utterly inadequate resources allow, she doesn't have to think about the fact that Zod has reacted with the same alacrity.

When she has done all she can for Jor but let him rest, the general pushes off the wall he has been lurking against and growls, "Well?"

Lara feels all of her nascent goodwill towards the military caste evaporate.

She lunges and gets her hand within a hairsbreadth of Zod's face before he catches her wrists.

"How could you?!" she shrieks into the tall man's face, terror, old and new, adding fuel to the fury. "Jor always considered you a friend – how dare you pretend you care, now, when you were the one to stab him!"

The general looks startled, then indignant. "I will not apologize for defending my life."

Lara scoffs. "Jor would have never killed you! He never killed anyone!"

Indignation turns into something stronger.

"He killed six of my men within the hour beforehand," Zod hisses, "two of them before your very eyes!"

If that was supposed to cow her, it is exactly the wrong thing to say. "They tried to kill our son!"

The general's face twists into something ugly. "How long do you think that abomination survived, anyway? It would have been kinder to make it quick …."

Her wrists are still trapped, so Lara brings up her knee between his legs. The grunt of pain is satisfying, even if he still doesn't release her.

"His name is Kal!" she hisses back. "He is a perfectly healthy baby boy, no different from any other child you've ever seen!"

Zod sneers at that, but before she can kick him again, Jor starts stirring and they are both distracted.

Especially since her idiot husband tries to sit up immediately.

"Stop!" Lara and Zod snap in unison, and while she hurries to get a restraining hand on Jor before he does himself further injury, the general continues, "Try to stand now, Jor-El, and you won't make it three steps before you fall flat on your face."

A scornful curl of lips. "Which is a lesson you should learn the hard way, but if you tear your wound further, you might die. And I will not have another life wasted to prove your foolishness."

Lara could strangle Zod for his callousness. Jor, for whatever reason, grins like a loon.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

To distract Jor as he heals, Lara starts speculating if Kal might have started crawling by now and what else he might be up to. It helps keeping up her own spirits, too, a much-needed counterweight to the grief and despair and the near-starvation.

And if the general turns away in disgust at any mention of her baby boy – well, that's no loss, in Lara's opinion.


	3. Searching

She keeps up the habit.

Marking Kal's age and imagining his possible adventures gets them through the stresses of forcing a slapdash phantom drive[1] through space towards the nearest colony. A colony known to be long abandoned, but as a former military outpost it should still hold some supplies they can scavenge.

Between Jor and Lara, Jax-Ur trying to prove himself to Zod, and the military caste being not half as inept at technical work as the science caste has been led to believe, they leave with a ship much improved. That is, one that at least doesn't tear itself apart just by accelerating, and offers a minimum of variation to their replicator diet.

They launch towards the next colony two days after Kal's first birthday, and Jor celebrates the occasion by whispering a ludicrously elaborate party setup into her ear while he holds her tightly.

Lara returns the favor when their next destination turns out unviable, its parent planet having reverted back from the initial terraforming. She wraps herself around Jor and comes up with an even more ludicrous list of presents to keep her husband from doing something stupid, when Zod _completely loses it_ at the realization that they might truly be the last survivors of Krypton.

Hope, however ludicrous, is really the only way to stave off insanity.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

It's a few days short of Kal's fourth birthday before Lara realizes how much their habit has influenced the rest of the crew.

They have just sought out the sixth outpost and found it long dead, the planet cold and dark and empty.

Tempers are fraying under the constant disappointments, and so it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise when Jax-Ur suddenly snaps.

"We are the last and will stay the last and there is no one else! Kal won't get four in four days – or ever! The stupid thing is long dead and I won't listen to that drivel about what it might be doing any longer!"

As it is, the stark rebuttal still hits hard and Lara is nearly in tears when the tirade is cut short by Nam-Ek, the big frontline fighter, cuffing the smaller scientist across the head with enough force to knock him over.

Jax-Ur shrilly protests to Zod and Nam-Ek visibly braces for a reprimand, but the general just looks down contemptuously and says, "Five days. What kind of scientist are you, Jax-Ur, if you cannot even count to five?"

Then he sends off Nam-Ek to perform some soldierly task elsewhere and turns away himself, without acknowledging the stares.

Lara decides to not antagonize Zod anymore.

When Nam-Ek passes her two days later and briefly holds up three fingers, Lara smiles brightly for the first time in far too long.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Years pass, marked by birthdays and the expected achievements of a growing child.

Zod takes to offering biting comments on their imaginations, especially denying any feats that require specific instruction first.

Lara is ill-equipped to counter his arguments, her son is alone on a planet she knows very little about. Habitable but never colonized, a yellow sun and an indigenous species sapient enough to raise another intelligent being. She doesn't know more than that, not even what obscure record her husband might have drawn this destination from – and even what she knows is not all safe to share with the general.

Ill-equipped or not, however, Lara doesn't take slights to Kal lying down: so maybe he won't learn to read the Kryptonian letters, but surely whatever civilization there is will have some sort of script _and he will learn that!_ Flowing glyphs or angular letters or maybe pictographic characters, her son is smart and he will manage all or any of them. Jor adds that Kal might come up with his own writing system, if necessary, and Zod storms off in disgust.

Another time when Zod shoots down some intellectual achievement, Jor brushes it off by arguing that their son doesn't need that skill to keep safe what is important – and then the two men nearly come to blows as the general takes offense at that statement. _All_ of the soldiers aboard give them the cold shoulder for weeks afterwards, until even her thick-headed husband takes the hint and apologizes. Or, in his own words, _'clarifies his meaning.'_

As irritating as the constant criticisms are, _'uneducated fool'_ is a long way up from _'twisted monstrosity that ought to be culled on sight.'_ By the time Kal is ten, Lara is no longer afraid that Zod might kill her son out of hand, should the two ever meet.

By the time Kal is fifteen, the general turns one of Jor's arguments on choice, and that power holds no innate right to oppress the less powerful, on its head: if Kal would become protector of a lesser species _by free choice_, Zod claims, then the military caste is clearly superior to all others, since that is what even the offspring of two scientists would try to aspire to, if given the option.

The smirk on the general's face, when he leaves her husband temporarily speechless, makes Lara wonder if she shouldn't start worrying about Zod meeting her son for completely different reasons. The general's black-and-white mind-set might look temptingly straightforward to a young man confused by culture shock ….

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The one downside that comes with changing Zod's perceptions of Kal away from _'target'_ is that he focusses more on another one.

Jor and Lara might consider their son enough of a worthwhile future, but the general does not. He needs more, he needs a planet to protect, and so Zod won't stop seeking the Codex while there is breath in his body – and Lara isn't entirely sure if even a lack thereof would deter him, the general is as stubborn as her husband and even more single-minded.

The only thing that keeps the screaming rows Zod has with Jor on the topic from getting violent (or even deadly) is the cold logic that the Codex is useless unless they possess a functioning Genesis Chamber, too. So far, they haven't found one.

Cold logic will not hold forever, though, Lara fears, and so she is deeply grateful for the unexpected kinship she finds with Faora-Ul. It's a bond first realized when she sees the other woman eye those fights like she cannot decide which man to grab and bash over the head first. Voicing that thought aloud would only push the fiercely loyal soldier into defending her general, of course, and so Lara settles for, "You grab yours and I grab mine if they get out of hand? I'm afraid we have need of both of them, yet."

After a reflexive scowl, Faora agrees with a tiny smile that seems to startle her as much as it does Lara, and from there on the two women become allies. It still takes Lara an unjustifiable amount of time to realize why the soldier blushed faintly at the mention of 'yours'.

When he is more in the mood for common sense, Zod tries to question Lara about the Codex, too, but she can truthfully tell him that she doesn't know its location.

Habitable is the one obvious qualifier and even that is a relative term: they find several formerly colonized planets reverting back from the conditions the World Engines created, twisting all remaining biosphere into desperate viciousness or unviability. Jor solemnly swears to her that Kal's destination was _naturally _habitable – not an abandoned attempt at colonization but never considered. Even so, the question which flaw of the engines – or law of nature – is responsible for this phenomenon troubles both the scientists and Zod.

When, some two decades into their quest, they happen upon an intact World Engine, Jor nearly takes it apart to find an answer – and Zod nearly strangles him for it. A world reformed to Kryptonian standards that needs to be kept monitored to uphold those standards is good enough for the general, and much preferable to the chance of no such planet at all.

Lara can't help but agree with Zod, no matter how much the scientist in her feels the urge to seek the perfect solution, too.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

And then they receive a signal from a scout-ship sent, long ago, to a distant world.

* * *

[1] repurposed from the Phantom Projector that once banished them, an irony Lara could appreciate under better circumstances.


	4. Found

It's a live world and habitable, if very wet and covered by a rather thick atmosphere compared to Krypton. It even has sentient lifeforms, and looking at them – their communications are laughably accessible for anyone passing by – Lara knows without a doubt that this is the planet Jor has chosen for their son.

It is also a world incredibly fractured: every little scrap of land stands for itself, eyeing their neighbors with distrust at best and fighting outright wars with them at worst. Lara has programmed Kal's pod to descend on solid ground (even if she didn't expect there to be so little of it), near an inhabited structure but some way from any larger civilization centers. Now she feels that avoiding any larger landmasses would have been the safer choice and frets about what sort of chaos she has sent her baby boy into.

Zod looks over the same data and takes the conclusion one step further. "Where is he, Jor-El? Kal should be so much stronger, so much faster, so much **_more_** than any of them. How can he not be obvious? What does he fear that he would hide himself?"

It is heartening to see the general treat Kal as one of their own, a son of Krypton that Zod owes protection. It is terrifying that her husband looks nonplussed rather than completely self-assured when he starts, "The yellow sun …."

"Yes, yes, the sun," the general snaps, waving away the argument. "But the atmosphere down there is barely breathable and you do not know how that balanced out the sun for a developing child."

It is _utterly terrifying_ that Jor does not immediately counter that, and so Lara echoes Zod's question. "Where is he, Jor? Where is our son?!"

"I'm certain he's fine," her husband assures, and at least that response is swift and full of conviction. It does _not_ answer her question, though, and both Lara and the general scowl at the evasion.

Faced with that rare alliance, Jor folds.

"I don't know, exactly. I have located the scout-ship – it's near the northern pole – and the pod is about here," her husband points to an area in the middle of one of the larger landmasses. "But Kal is a single lifeform among billions. I cannot locate him from orbit."

Before Lara can voice what she thinks of _that_, Jor holds up his hand with a confident smile that reminds her of the brilliant leader of the science caste of so long ago. "It shouldn't be too hard to find him, however. If he has left the vicinity of the scout-ship, I will simply ask him to come to me."

"Ask him," Zod repeats flatly.

"Their communication systems are laughably accessible," her husband declares. "I can insert my own message into them and ask him to meet me. Of course, it'll be his own choice if he comes, but I'm certain I can explain …"

"No," the general cuts him off abruptly.

"Excuse me?!"

"If you announce yourself as a desperate parent looking for his child, you give everyone who hears you power over you _and_ over Kal. That will not do! Their arsenal is primitive but I am not willing to gamble that nothing they can do can injure an untrained youth."

Jor has that look in his eyes that says he's about to argue, and so Lara intervenes. "Neither am I."

She eyes Zod thoughtfully. "What do you propose?"

"_I_ will ask for the boy and _I_ will retrieve him."

Her husband protests that the message he left with Kal contained his knowledge up to Zod's attempted coup, and therefore their son is unlikely to trust the general. But as Jor has to admit that it was also composed with the expectation of never meeting Kal again, of having died in Krypton's destruction long before their son was old enough to understand the message, he finds himself overruled and finally accepts the proposal with ill grace.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

"You are not alone," every Earthly communication device the combined efforts of Jor, Lara and Jax-Ur can take control of broadcasts, in every local language they could decipher.

"My name is General Zod," the transmission goes on, "I come from a world far from yours. I have journeyed across an ocean of stars to reach you. For some time, your world has sheltered one of my citizens. I request that you return this individual to my custody. For reasons unknown, he has chosen to keep his existence a secret from you. He will have made efforts to blend in. He will look like you, but he is not one of you. To those of you who may know of his current location: the fate of your planet rests in your hands. To Kal-El, I say this: surrender within 24 hours, or watch this world suffer the consequences."

Subtlety has never been one of the military caste's strong suits (nor the science caste's, to be honest), but while Lara approved wholeheartedly of Zod's decision to make his declaration in full armor – for her baby boy's safety, she is all for a show of strength – the final phrasing seems a bit … _over the top._

"You sound like an invader," she admonishes.

The general gives her a pointed look.

"I gave the less trustworthy elements of their leadership incentive to hand over your son, not try to use him as a bargaining tool," he replies, and there is nothing she can say against that.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

More than half of the allotted 24 hours have passed before a person calling himself General Swanwick – Zod sneers contemptuously at the title – aims a moderately focused signal at their ship and proclaims Earth ready to surrender Kal-El to them.

For once, Jor looks as troubled by the message as Lara feels. She is too distracted to listen to the exact words her husband hastily exchanges with Zod as the general makes ready to depart for the planet, but there seems to be a 'misunderstanding' in there. Zod looks unconvinced, but when the general briefly grips Jor's shoulder, the gesture has all the gravitas of a solemn promise.

Lara understands Zod well enough by now to know that he keeps his promises. She will hold onto that hopeful thought, for the next few hours.


	5. Retrieval

Warning: perspective flip _and_ accompanying attitude. Zod is a product of his upbringing and did not even consider all _Kryptonians_ to be people until he was stuck with only a handful left. Plus, by the standards of a society that has had FTL travel for more than a hundred thousand years, humans are just local wildlife with delusions of grandeur.

* * *

Nam-Ek at his left shoulder, Lieutenant Tor-An at his right, and Commander Ul under strict orders to stay behind and take command of the ship, just in case. For a moment, the woman looks as if she is considering mutiny for the first time in her life.

_All the more reason to leave the ship in her capable hands._

The commander will keep Jor-El and even Lara in line – though the two women have struck up an unlikely friendship over the years, Zod has full confidence that loyalty to her general will always come first for Faora-Ul.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

As the shuttle descends towards the position Earth's transmission came from, Zod takes a good look at the situation on the ground. He is distinctly unimpressed.

The humans have brought enough weapons to appear hostile, but nothing that could back up the threat should he take it seriously. _How tactically unsound._

Kal-El, on the other hand, has positioned himself a short distance in front of the humans. He is wearing the insignia of his House – if in a rather outdated version, the boy must have found this suit on the old scout-ship – but otherwise gives a poor showing of _'hope'_.

He looks physically more mature than would be expected for his years – side-effect of the yellow sun, the general suspects – but Kal-El's stance betrays his inexperience. Zod feels his fingers twitch with the urge to correct this, but that will have to wait until the humans are out of the way. Though, why the boy allowed _them_ to surrender _him_ is still beyond the general.

At least, Kal-El doesn't flinch when the shuttle approaches him closely before coming to a stop in a swirl of up-churned dust. For that, Zod grants him the curtesy of turning the visor of his helmet transparent as he descends the shuttle ramp, like he would on approaching a Kryptonian base.

"Greetings, Kal-El. I am General Dru-Zod."

There is a muttered reply, caught halfway between defiance against the aggressor the Kryptonian general has painted himself as and some innate civility.

Zod acknowledges it with a nod and steps past the boy, to take a closer look at the human Kal-El was speaking to until just before the shuttle made its final approach.

"What about the woman?" the Kryptonian general asks. "Is she yours? Should we take her along, too?"

One of the human soldiers immediately steps in front of the indicated female, the first worthwhile act Zod has seen of the wretched bunch.

"You asked for the alien. You didn't say anything about one of our own!" the human snarls.

It_ is_ encouraging that they seem to have some notion of protecting their people, the Kryptonian general concedes. _There is hope the boy might have learned _something _useful here, then._

Of course, Zod still ignores the human and turns back to Kal-El. "Well?"

The boy sputters that she is not his anything but her own person, but his attachment is clear to see.

"You value her," the Kryptonian general states the obvious, and cannot help but lecture, "You don't leave anything you value in the hands of those hostile to you."

He takes another step towards the woman and the human soldier puts his hands on his weapon – courageous if utterly futile. Zod might actually feel a sliver of regret about killing the man, if it comes to that.

It is the woman that keeps things from escalating further.

"It's all right," she says, stepping past her protector. "I'll go."

It is basic politeness to gesture her towards Kal-El and then the Kryptonian general turns his back on the rest of the humans, and especially the one with stars on his chest, the one who seems to be in command and yet has not said a word to all of this. _Some _'General'_, indeed!_

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Inside the shuttle, the boy insists on putting himself between Zod and the woman, which means the latter comes to stand next to Nam-Ek, making her look even more delicate and fragile than she is.

_But speaking of which …._ The general sends Tor-An to fetch some spare breathing mask, lest the mere act of breathing the ship's atmosphere should kill the human before Zod can deliver Kal-El and his pet to the former's parents and let _them_ sort out the mess their actions created.

Once aboard the ship proper, the general leads the way to the observation deck and the scientists awaiting them there.

"Jor-El, Lara, this is your son Kal."

The boy stops dead at the sight of his parents and Zod gives him a none-too-gentle shove in the right direction to keep him moving. Then the general turns on his heel and leaves – he has no interest in watching Jor at a loss for words or ever-defiant Lara surrendering to tears. Let the House of El reunite on their own.

Zod will allow them a few hours for that, before he insists that they retrieve the Codex and then pick up the stranded scout-ship. _Those ancient things were massively overengineered, it might even have a functioning Genesis Chamber aboard …._

Distracted by that happy thought, he nearly steps on a squishy human trying to bar his way.

"His parents?!" the woman hisses. "You put out …," a vague gesture, that the general assumes to encompass all of his recent efforts, "all this to return Cla—, Kal-El to his parents?"

"Yes," Zod gives back curtly, not slowing his step. _Let the human move aside or get run over, whichever she wishes._

She jumps aside at the last possible moment but moves to trail after him.

"But why all the threats? You could have asked nicely, you know, that's how we usually …." She peters off.

"You don't leave anything you value in the hands of those hostile to you," she quotes back at him, before a door closes behind the general, faster than her human reflexes can cope with.

She is quick on the uptake, Zod will grant her that. The scientists will probably like the new pet.

* * *

A/N: General Swanwick is a curiously underdeveloped character in _Man of Steel_. And especially in this scene, he just stands there and let's Hardy take the initiative! No wonder he leaves an underwhelming first impression on any alien visitors ….


	6. Reunion

The young man General Zod shoves towards them with his usual brusqueness is nothing like Lara imagined him to be, and yet more than she dared to dream of.

He has her dark hair and Jor's gentle eyes, and wears the insignia of his House with unconscious grace. The particular design is ancient – Kal must have found the suit on the old scout-ship – but the bright colors look good on him.

_Bright hope._ Lara blinks rapidly, then gives up and just smiles through the tears.

Kal's eyes dart from her to Jor, and then back with a sudden wild longing on his face, before he averts his eyes quickly and focuses on his father.

"Father?" he croaks disbelievingly and then blurts, "you look older."

Jor swallows thickly.

"I left you that message decades ago," he reminds their son gently. "I never thought …."

"I thought you were dead!" Kal snaps abruptly and Lara can hear, '_I thought I was the last of my kind, alone forever!'_

"By the time we sent you away, it seemed impossible that we would ever see you again – or that we would live past the death of our planet, many years ago," Jor tries to explain and Lara jumps in with,

"We did not abandon you, Kal, _we sent you to safety!_ Not a day went by when I didn't wish I could have kept you, but even if you hate us for it now," – her voice breaks on that but it is true, _true, true!_ – "I would do it again to make sure you will live!"

Kal stares at her for a moment, and then he closes the distance in the blink of an eye and wraps his arms around her, her chin tucked against his shoulder automatically as if he'd done so a thousand times.

"Mum," he whispers into her hair, the word choked enough to be nearly unintelligible, but Lara can feel the vibrations in his chest and that is enough.

A startled squeak has Kal jerk upright again and, though reluctantly, withdraw his arms.

Turning as he turns, Lara can see the young human female that came with Zod and her son shove off the closed door.

"Are you alright, Lois?" Kal asks, a sudden worry in his tone.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine." The woman – _Lois _– waves away the concern, her smile a little forced at first but then growing genuinely wry. "Compared to Hardy, he was almost polite."

"Hardy?" Lara inquires, intrigued by the fact that Zod seems to have left a _favorable_ first impression.

"Another soldier I've met," Lois explains readily. "From Earth, of course. Has a very low opinion on reporters, and if he's forced to work with one, he'll be as nasty as he can. But if some alien monster from Outer Space comes for you, he'll still step in front of you without a second thought."

_Replace 'reporter' with 'anyone outside the military caste' and it becomes an eerily accurate description of General Zod. _

Lara shakes her head at the coincidence and then remembers her manners. "I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced, yet. I am Lara Lor-Van. Kal is my son."

"Lois Lane." The young woman holds out her hand and Lara takes it, very carefully. The ship has rather solid radiation shields, these days, so the influence of the yellow sun has been marginable, but Krypton still had a much higher gravity than Earth and the Kryptonians evolved accordingly. Lara doesn't want to break anything by accident.

Jor clears his throat and introduces himself with a formal flourish Lara hasn't seen in decades. Then he grins disarmingly and says, "Please do not call General Zod an _'alien monster from Outer Space'_ to his face, Miss Lane. He might take that for a compliment and let it go to his head."

The young woman looks skeptical until she catches the wink, and then Kal, who has gone quietly pale during the others' distraction, collapses to the ground, coughing up blood.

It's like watching Jor collapse in septic shock all over again, in those horrible days right after Krypton's destruction.

Lara doesn't scream, this time, but it's a near thing.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

After a moment of panic, it is blindingly obvious that Kal is as unaccustomed to Kryptonian atmospherics as Ms. Lane would have been, and while his body is adapted to them in principle, his lungs would have needed an acclimatization period to the much thinner air.

It is all too tempting to put the blame on Zod, who had the presence of mind to hand a breathing mask to the young woman – _why didn't he hand one to Kal, too?!_ – but that would be unfair. The general made a concession to human frailty; that he expected a Kryptonian (if only by birth) to breathe Kryptonian air without difficulty is not his fault, not if Kal's parents didn't foresee the possible pitfall, either.

Lara may not have screamed in first reaction, but she certainly _does_ shout at the first soldier she sees to assist Jor in carrying their son to the infirmary. Zod turns up promptly, too, but doesn't stay to lurk once he has found out what the commotion is about.

Lara is too busy stabilizing her son – and then, once he is safe enough, watching Lois eviscerate Jax-Ur verbally when the latter makes some disparaging remarks on Kal's constitution – to wonder what the general's unconcern means.

What she does know, however, is this: whatever the relationship between her son and the human woman may be – Lara doesn't think the two youngsters themselves have figured it out, yet – Kal has chosen well.

* * *

Fun fact: in _Man of Steel_, Lara and Martha Kent are almost exactly the same size. So yes, Kal knows perfectly well how to hug his mum. 😊


	7. Atmosphere

Aaand another warning: the general seems to have hijacked the story, insisting on getting an equal share. So, expect the POV to switch alternatingly from here on, with some overlap between the scenes.

* * *

There is a little fuss when Kal has a bad reaction to the ship's atmosphere, but Zod stays out of it. The boy will either get over it or he will not, but as he has survived Earth's atmosphere as an infant, the general sees no reason why Kal should not – and is proven right, quickly enough.

A few hours later, it is Jor-El who insists on retrieving the pod – and/or Kal-El who insists on introducing his true parents to his foster parents on Earth.

Zod is not about to let the scientists go off on their own, of course, but while Jor-El and Lara indulge in their fascination for local culture, the general plans to conduct a few experiments of his own.

Even filtered through his visor the yellow sunlight felt remarkably refreshing. Zod is looking forward to see what Earth feels like without a visor – the dense atmosphere will be an irritant, probably, but nothing he can't stand, he is sure ….

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The Kents and their farm are as quaint as the general expected, an aged couple with workers' builds and a few flimsy wooden buildings, respectively. Jor-El is immediately charmed by the technology – or rather, lack thereof – Lara is charmed by the humans who raised her son.

Zod nods curtly at the awkward introductions, stands around for as long has he can bear politeness, and then steps outside to check on the loading of the pod – should anyone ask him.

The pod is long aboard and secured, needless to say; the sight is barely enough to repress the urge to search it for the Codex immediately, but knowing Jor-El as well as the general does these days, it might not be that easy to find, anyway.

Nevertheless, it _is_ fortunate that Zod has a distraction in mind already, and so the general leaves the shuttle and its precious load behind, to find an out-of-the-way spot between the wooden outbuildings and retracts his visor.

The entire world hits him in the face.

Groping blindly for a hold to keep from falling over, Zod feels the feeble wall warp under his fingers and is about to reclose his visor and admit that Earth needs a slower acclimatization, when a soft voice cuts through the painful chaos.

"Without your helmet, you're getting everything," Kal-El says. "My parents taught me to hone my senses, focus on just what I wanted to see."

_Focus._ Focus is something the general has practiced all his life. Focus on the voice, on the steady Kryptonian heartbeat beside him, a little faster than his own but still slow by human standards, and pandemonium recedes.

Shoving himself back upright with a grunt, Zod forces himself to keep his eyes on the boy's face, not the bones underneath or the building behind him, and finds Kal staring at him, open-mouthed.

"It took me years!" the boy exclaims.

"I was bred to be a warrior, Kal," the general gives back when he trusts his voice to be steady again. "I trained my entire life to master my senses. You were a child, untrained and raised on a farm."

"There's nothing wrong with farming," the boy grumbles defensively, and then, when Zod raises an eyebrow, abruptly changes the topic.

"I thought I might have to fight you for Earth, when you first arrived," Kal blurts. "I'm glad it didn't go that way!"

Part of that might be a scientist's genuine dislike for physical conflict. The rest seems to be the sensible understanding of being atrociously outclassed. _There might be hope for the boy, indeed._

"You would have lost," the general agrees.

Kal grins. "All things being equal, sure. But things are _never_ equal for me. I would have figured out soon enough how to use Earth to my advantage – such as the sensory overload you get without your helmets …."

Zod inclines his head – knowing the terrain and using it against the enemy is a time-honored tactic, after all – but shoots the boy down before he gets cocky.

"But being your father's son, you couldn't have stopped yourself from explaining how you hold the advantage, I expect." A tap against the still open collar of his armor reminds the younger El how fast that particular handicap was overcome, once the general knew how.

Kal opens his mouth and then closes it with a click of teeth. "You mean Jor … uh, my father, is always like this? I thought it was because I know, well, _nothing _about Krypton or anything outside Earth."

"He was leader of the science caste on Krypton, born and raised for it just like I was for the military," Zod reminds the boy. "Lecturing the less knowledgeable is literally in his blood."

Kal chuckles at that, but quickly sobers. "Then it should be in my blood, too. But I'm not a scientist."

"No, you are not." And that is the most perplexing thing about the boy. As amusing as it was to needle Jor about preferences, the offspring of two brilliant scientists should have bred true and gone for whatever passed for science on this mudball, even with his genetics mixed at random by natural conception.

That Kal did _not _do so contradicts everything the general knows about the Codex and the strict predetermination through genetic attributes it enforced for centuries. It's like the potential was already there, to think or protect or produce, without a fundamental difference, only a choice and an upbringing ….

A persistent drone at the edge of his hearing shakes Zod out of the troubling thoughts and he goes for the distraction gratefully.

A bit of concentration identifies a number of those human flying machines, approaching the farm in a wide circle, and some more humans in vehicles on the ground beneath them.

Kal catches his switch of focus and quickly steps forward. "They are just afraid. If you don't attack them …."

"I won't. But I will not have them circle me like insects, either."


	8. Introductions

When Yax-Ur has slunk off in defeat, Lois asks for a glass of water and how to turn her breathing mask off and on to drink it. Lara declares the latter unsafe but shows her how to hook up a drinking bulb to the mask and how to use it. Jor gets an inventive gleam into his eyes and excuses himself to tinker with the mask mechanisms.

Lara uses the time to get as many stories as possible out of her son, about the years she missed. Kal speaks about an unassuming childhood mostly, before Lois jumps in with a string of heroic deeds she used to locate him.

Lara smiles and nods and her heart freezes while she waits for a sign that her son's sense of protectiveness is as uncompromising as the military caste's. Zod and his soldiers would lay down their lives, unthinkingly, to protect Krypton, but they would just as unthinkingly eradicate entire populations of outsiders, too, if it served the same purpose.

To her immense relief, however, Kal seems to avoid all conflict, eager to help but never fight.

He seems uncomfortable with praise, too, as he changes the topic at the first possible moment and asks about his homeworld.

Lara has barely started with a basic description of Krypton-as-it-was when Jor returns. Her husband proudly hands Lois a modified breathing mask that will keep in a breathable atmosphere, but at the same time allow access to slow moving solid objects, like, for example, food and drink.

While Jor takes over the task of satisfying their son's curiosity – the leader of the science caste in his natural element – Lara finds herself drawn aside by the human woman.

"It's all past tense when your planet is mentioned," Lois states quietly. "General Zod was bluffing, wasn't he? He pretended to be all geared up to destroy Earth if not obeyed, but this ship isn't part of some great fleet lurking between the stars, is it? You're refugees, not envoys or even advance scouts."

"General Zod never bluffs," Lara hastens to clarify. "Yes, we are refugees, but this ship is very much capable of destroying a planet or rendering it unlivable for humans, whichever Zod prefers. And he would do just that if he considered Earth a threat."

Lois' eyes narrow, defiant rather than impressed, and Lara realizes that she has vilified her fellow Kryptonian unduly.

"He's not an omnicidal maniac," she adds quickly. "He just takes threats to his people extremely seriously."

"Great," the younger woman mutters, "another Hardy. Just one with his hands on earth-shattering weaponry."

Despite the flippant words, Lara thinks she has made her point.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Lara could lose herself in her son's company forever, but after a few hours Kal becomes restless. He is more than grateful to have met his birth parents, their son finally gets out, but he has parents on Earth, too, and they must be worried by now. Kal really wants the four of them to meet, too.

General Zod is surprisingly open to the request. Retrieving the pod – or rather_, the Codex,_ Lara expects – is the main draw of the excursion for the general, but he doesn't set a strict time limit for the trip, either. He even goes along with greeting the natives, looming tall, dark and fierce in the background for the most part, but not uncivil when spoken to.

Zod does decline both a seat and the offer of food and drink, however, and takes his leave soon after. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief to see the back of him, especially the Kents, even though they seemed fully prepared to defend their son from the alien general.

The formers are generally intriguing, Lara finds, farmers but not entirely uneducated beyond their trade. Jor soon finds a shared fascination with Mr. Kent – _Jonathan_ – for the technical details of a vehicle called _'motorcycle.'_ Lara entreats Mrs. Kent – _Martha_ – for childhood anecdotes about their son and takes advantage of Jor's improved breathing masks to sample the offered victuals.

Coffee is an odd-tasting hot drink containing a stimulant, if one that has no impact on Kryptonian physiology. Pie is a curiosity. Lara asks for the ingredients and how they interact in preparation – she has always been drawn towards the life sciences, and what is cooking if not applied biochemistry?

Contrary to what Jor might say, however – and here she has to elbow her husband _when_ _he_ _starts saying so aloud!_ – Lara is trying to identify the flavors, not the shape of the constituent molecules. Not everyone feels the need to go for technical details all the time the way Jor does.

The Kents share a look and a knowing smile of their own at the matrimonial byplay, and lose the rest of their guardedness towards the Kryptonians. Which _might_ have been exactly what her husband intended when he opened his mouth with a certain look in his eyes, Lara concedes. He doesn't always remember to, but Jor can be quite the charmer when he makes the effort.

Conversation resumes and the two elder males dive back into their technical discussion, while Kal uses the opportunity to sneak from the house. Lara raises an eyebrow at Martha.

"He must have spotted something outside," the human woman says with a small sigh. "Maybe your general has found himself some trouble."

It's Lara's turn to sigh. "Yes, he does that on occasion."

* * *

A/N: Superman canon goes back and forth on whether Jonathan Kent (and/or his wife) survives into Clark's adulthood or not. _Man of Steel_ had a thing for contrived stupidity killing off any father figures in Kal/Clark's life, and since I already spared Jor-El, it's only fair to do the same for Mr. Kent.

So, assume that in this universe the twister scene goes as follows: a teenaged Clark runs after his father when he sees a car flying towards the latter, grabs the man and throws him to safety (or as safe as you'll get under an overpass ;). Then, after freeing the dog himself, Clark looks back, sees his father down and injured since in his agitation* the young Kryptonian has applied a bit more force than human flesh and bones can withstand, panics and runs, thus kicking off his wandering years. There's probably a stone at the local cemetery, _in memoriam_ of the young man last seen swallowed by a twister, after saving both his father and the family dog ….

*half fear for his family, half frustration, as no adolescent male likes to always hold back.


	9. Liaison

Low gravity worlds and the increase in mobility that comes with them is something Zod is used to, but he did not factor in the boost this yellow sun would give him. He can barely control his first jump, and even his third, that precipitates him in front of the approaching human forces, is a little less precise than the general would wish for.

However, an impact cracking the ground beneath him has the advantage of getting him instant attention. Two of the vehicles slew into each other as the whole cavalcade comes to a hasty stop.

Zod waits until this _'general'_ Swanwick stumbles out of one of them, the soldier who tried to protect Kal's woman at his side.

"Your presence here achieves nothing but to irritate me," the Kryptonian general informs them. "Go away!"

"You got what you wanted," Swanwick argues back. "Why are you still here?"

There is really no reason to account for his actions to the humans, but for the sake of resolving this with the minimum amount of mess, Zod indulges them. "This is the area where Kal-El's escape pod came down. We will retrieve it – and my chief scientist is curious about how it may have interacted with the environment."

"What about the people who live here?" the soldier demands to know. "What's happening to them?"

For his display of protectiveness, the Kryptonian general indulges him, too. "My chief scientist is talking to them."

That draws the human general's attention, too, even if his worries seem more along the lines of secrets exposed than people endangered. "About what?"

Patience thinning, Zod gives him a curt, "Whatever satisfies his curiosity. Now. Go. Away!"

The soldier opens his mouth to argue further, but while the Kryptonian general approves of his tenacity, the humans' disregard for his orders is getting old. "I will not repeat myself a third time – remove yourselves before I do it for you!"

Blank stares all around. It's like the humans think he must be joking.

Zod makes half a step towards his human counterpart and the soldier immediately brings up his weapon to point it at the Kryptonian's head.

"Oh, no, you won't!" the human growls.

_Just as well._ The Kryptonian general grabs the weapon and the hands that hold it, and a split-second later he has the human pinned flat on the ground by a boot on his hip, both of the human's wrists in one hand and pulled up until all of the easy slack is gone, and the gun crushed into a ball, dropped contemptuously at Swanwick's feet. Then he waits for human reaction times to catch up.

The soldier under Zod's boot is the first to react, cursing, writhing and kicking uselessly while the human general stares in disbelief. The Kryptonian general raises his occupied hand a little higher and the cursing cuts off with a gasp.

"Well?" Zod snaps at the shocked humans, intent on nipping the disrespect in the bud that his earlier indulgence apparently engendered. "If I tear him in halves, will you take the hint and send _the rest_ of your forces away?"

It takes another second but then Swanwick finally comes to grasps with the situation. "No! Stop! Stop! Let him go and we will pull back."

The Kryptonian general finds his lips curling back in contempt._ That is even more presumptuous than demanding an accounting was_.

"You will pull back and get all of your forces surrounding this area out of my sight," Zod informs the humans. "If I find any left, I will remove them in whatever way I see fit. If you send in any more, I will consider them a hostile act, instead of a mere annoyance, and react accordingly. Did I make myself clear?!"

The Kryptonian general lets his eyes drift upwards at that, to the faint glint of his ship in orbit, and the human general swallows heavily at the reminder of the vast technological gap between their species.

"Yes, General," Swanwick bites out resentfully.

Zod couldn't care less about what the human thinks of him. Looking down he goes on, "This one I will keep. He reacted decisively to a threat, he convinced you to do as I say, and he has proven the will to protect other humans which should motivate him to clear up any further misunderstandings as quickly as possible. Therefore, he might actually prove useful as a … _liaison._"

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The retreating humans eyed the Kryptonian general with a mix of fear and anger on their faces; the soldier he has kept is pure defiance.

Zod waits until all of the vehicles, including the flyers, have turned around and started to move away before he sets the human upright again.

The man's stance is off, handicapped by the soft tissue damage the Kryptonian can see around the shoulder joints; it is still no less belligerent than the tone when the man snarls, "You're holding the whole planet hostage, so what do you want me for? Private toy or just another lab rat for your scientists?"

The words make little sense in context and Zod ignores them. He keeps watching the retreating vehicles, curious about how the humans are going to interpret _'out of my sight.'_

It's only when the human soldier tries to get the Kryptonian's attention by escalating invectives that Zod cuts him off. "You want to protect your people?"

That gets the glare in return that such an inane question deserves.

"Then you will keep them from annoying me further for as long as we are here," the Kryptonian explains reasonably, "and we will be gone soon enough."

"How long?" the human demands to know, but Zod couldn't answer that precisely if he wanted to, with the Els and their boundless curiosity involved.

"As long as it takes," he gives back shortly.

The Kryptonian general allows the human forces five minutes to comply with their orders and then starts checking the perimeter. He finds some unmoving stragglers almost immediately.

"Your general is either unwilling or unable to comply with our agreement," he remarks to the human soldier.

"What's that supposed to meeeeeea…?" starts out defiantly but ends as a startled shout, when Zod takes a good hold of the man and jumps.

The Kryptonian moves cautiously, mindful of the fragility of human bones, and finds that when he takes care to control his fall, he can almost … _hover_. Setting the discovery aside for later study, Zod puts down the soldier on a walkway bridging the top of a row of squat towers.

Hollow towers, filled with some sort of agricultural produce. The Kryptonian general ignores the oddity and turns to instruct the human. "There are three armed men on the last tower in this row, facing the landing place of my shuttle. Send them on their way before I do it."

The human soldier stares at him skeptically but then starts to move along the spindly steel construct. The man gets more agitated when he finds that there are indeed some soldiers set up as Zod told him, with long weapons of an unusual type and assorted instruments aimed at the Kent farm. A sniper's nest, if the Kryptonian general had to guess.

Keeping his distance but naturally well within earshot, Zod is gratified to hear that his new liaison takes offense at seeing Swanwick's orders disobeyed. At least this man, it seems, expected the human general to stay true to his word.

When the other humans not only deny receiving any orders to retreat, but refuse to acknowledge Colonel Hardy's authority to send them off, the Kryptonian general has heard enough, though.

The flimsy platform, that the humans have positioned themselves on, nearly shakes itself loose from the tower when Zod lands on it.

"You would do well to listen to the colonel," the Kryptonian general thunders – _maybe Zod should remember the name, if only to distinguish _his_ human from the rest_ – "as the new liaison between your forces and mine, he speaks not only for General Swanwick, he speaks for me!"

With his boot planted on the foremost of the weapons, the Kryptonian general is pinning one man's arms to the platform. Another is obscured by Hardy standing between them, but the last one starts to raise his weapon.

Zod smirks at him and stomps. The whole platform drops.

The distance to the ground is enough to kill humans, if the Kryptonian is to judge, and it is tempting to just pick up Hardy and let the rest fall to their deaths. But letting the word spread has its own advantages ….

Zod catches the platform just above the ground and shakes off the humans.

"Run!" the general snaps at the surplus soldiers, and finally finds himself obeyed with the alacrity he is used to observe.


	10. Explain

The snipers were the last of the stragglers, and while Zod holds no illusions that they will be the last intruders, for now they can return to the farm.

Kal-El awaits them at the edge of the property, and the boy seems agitated.

"Was that really necessary?" are the first words out of his mouth.

Zod raises an eyebrow.

"Perhaps not, they had no prospect of harming anything but the local structures and inhabitants, after all." The general gestures dismissively at the Kent farm. "But I would rather remove an irritant than let it grow into a threat – wouldn't you?"

Unwilling to get into a lengthy argument with the younger El, Zod brushes past the boy on his way to the main building – and just barely catches a flicker in Kal's eyes. For a split-second, they seem to shine a bright red before they turn back to normal. _How curious._

"They wouldn't shoot at their own people!" the boy snaps then, proving his inexperience once more.

"Collateral damage," Zod explains patiently. "Any projectile or explosion that rebounds from the shuttle will hit part of this farm."

Before Kal can argue anything else, the general sends him to do something useful. "Ask Lara Lor-Van to meet us out here for a moment, will you?"

The boy opens his mouth for some sort of defiant retort, but then merely scowls and obeys.

Lara raises a half curious, half censorious eyebrow at the tableau that greets her, but does as told when Zod asks her to take a look at the injured human. The order gains the general suspicious looks from Hardy – somewhat understandable, Zod supposes – and incredulous ones from Kal – less understandable, just what did the boy expect?

"What happened?" Lara asks while she scans the human's shoulders and the general is halfway through the explanation before the human's scowl and the boy's confused frown make him realize that both question and answer haven't been in the local language. And, of course, Kal is not yet fluent in his own mother tongue.

The latter is not Zod's problem, thankfully, and so he just continues his report. Lara hums thoughtfully once he is finished and then turns towards Hardy.

"I am not yet able to make sense of all the local idioms, I'm afraid," she says politely. "So, what exactly is a lab rat in the context of conversation, Colonel Hardy? How do people turn into one when you talk to them?"

The human soldier sputters and Kal goes unexpectedly tense.

"A lab rat?" the boy repeats. "A lab rat is a small animal used for experiments."

It's Lara's turn to frown confusedly. "What kind of experiments?"

Kal shrugs, clearly ill at ease. "All kinds. Usually not very comfortable or outright fatal for the rat."

Lara stares for a moment, first at her son and then at Hardy.

"Obviously you do things _very _differently here!" she hisses then, tone so heavily resonant with _Science Offended!_ that Hardy, who has faced dismemberment undaunted, leans as far away from her as he can get.

Lara slaps the last of the medical pads on the human with a little more than necessary force, and then storms off towards the main house of the farm.

Hardy waits until the door has swung closed behind her before he asks, "Who was that?"

Kal sends him a defensive glare.

"My mother," he says flatly.

The human soldier stares at him for a few seconds, and then mutters, "Oh, that explains so much."

The boy predictably bristles. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Woman like that misplaces her kid," Hardy explains, "I'm not surprised to find her raising an invasion army to get him back."

Which, while factually incorrect, is an eerily accurate description of Lara's disposition, Zod finds.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

When the door reopens a minute later, Hardy tenses at first, but the female leaving the house is not an irate scientist but Kal's woman, followed closely by Mrs. Kent. Given the identical looks of exasperation the two women wear, Zod considers the human soldier's relaxation at the sight to be premature.

"You have been watching too many midnight movies, young man," the older woman starts, "if _'visited by aliens'_ immediately makes you think _'invasive procedures.'_ I assure you, Colonel Hardy, all they did is eat pie and talk motorcycles with my husband."

The colonel opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Kal's woman jumps in with, "It's true, Hardy. Everyone was on their best behavior, even the good general here."

She nods at Zod with an insouciance he would take offence at, if she wasn't so obviously winding up the human colonel. Indeed, her tone becomes pure challenge when she adds, "And if you think I'd be easier to shut up for him than for you or Swanwick …."

"He can take a whole planet hostage and make it stick!" Hardy snaps back. "So, …."

Slight, elderly and a farmer, Mrs. Kent clears her throat with enough emphasis to cut through the nascent tirade.

"Please excuse us for a moment, General," she says politely, and then steps down from the porch, grabs the human soldier by the arm and drags the man – easily half again her weight and most of that muscle – off to the side.

Zod, Kal and his woman watch them go with various expressions of bemusement.

For the two Kryptonians, the expression morphs into a smirk soon enough, when Mrs. Kent proceeds give Hardy a thorough dressing-down, starting with the words, "Let me set a few things straight, …" once they are out of human earshot.

"Does Hardy know that the two of you can still hear them, easily?" Kal's woman asks after a few seconds. "I mean, he knows that you can see through walls, Clark, but did hearing ever come up?"

The boy shrugs. Zod doesn't bother with an answer. He is too busy wondering what it will take to ensure that Faora-Ul will never meet Mrs. Kent. The latter seems to be getting along well with Lara, and the thought of _all three_ women ganging up is scarier than the general is willing to admit.


	11. Resolve

As it turns out, Zod _has_ found himself some trouble. And he has even brought it home with him. Mindful of the audience, Lara only rolls her eyes internally, before she patches up the human soldier the general has picked up somewhere.

She does demand an explanation, though, if discreetly. Once the first exasperation has faded – for, _of course,_ General Zod has somehow managed to snag himself the very Colonel Hardy that Lois described as his human alter ego – she finds that some facts do not add up properly.

A misunderstanding, Lara assumes, until her son ascertains that, no, the man meant exactly what he said. Then she has to remove herself from the scene, for, _of all the barbaric …!_

Martha and Lois take one look at her and chorus, "What happened?" before her husband has even noticed her upset.

It's hard to put in words, the sheer _wrongness _of the accusation, but the two human women get the gist quickly enough. They promptly step outside, determined to set things right, while Jor wraps his arms tightly around Lara.

"It has happened," Jonathan says cautiously. "All in the past, one hopes, but the precedent is there. People have done horrible things to those they consider 'less-than-people.'"

Jor takes a deep, steadying breath.

"There have been … _unscrupulous_ experiments on Krypton, too, once," he says just as carefully. "It is heresy to even speak of such things, now, but they _have_ happened. It seems that we are not that unlike in this regard, too."

_That was thousands of years ago!_ Lara wants to rail, _unknown to all but a few very select historians. Not so close to the surface that it is the first thing _a soldier _thinks of!_

But Jax has made proposals to Zod over the years, alternatives in case they found a Genesis chamber but not the Codex, that veered dangerously close to such heresy. The general has never shown any interest, but if he had given the other man free reign ….

Burying her face into her husband's shoulder, Lara takes a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then forcefully changes the topic.

The two men answer warily at first, when she inquires about their previous object of discussion, and how a motorcycle differs – or compares – to other human vehicles, but by the time the door opens again, the mood is almost back to normal. Jor is explaining things with grand gestures, Jonathan is pitching in with the occasional detail, and Lara is content to let the secondhand passion wash over her.

Martha gives Lara a critical onceover when she enters, but seems to approve of what she sees.

"I set the man straight," the human woman declares. "It should keep for a while."

She seems on the verge of saying something else, but then her matter-of-fact confidence dims. "And then it won't matter, will it? You won't be here for long."

Martha swallows and reaches, maybe subconsciously, for her husband's hand. "And you are going to take Clark away with you, aren't you?"

Lara takes a good hold of her own source of strength before she can answer. "I … I certainly want to – I haven't seen him for so long – but I'm not sure if he will accept it. He has … _roots_ here, now. Friends, parents, a planet that he feels protective of."

"And I guess that _'ocean of stars'_ isn't one you can cross just by hopping on a red-eye flight, right?" Jonathan asks with a perceptiveness well-hidden under the rugged exterior. "So, he can't … _commute_. Or visit often."

"Actually," Jor starts, his tone shifting the way it typically does when he is thinking aloud, "the fourth planet of the system might be suitable for colonization. The nearby asteroid belt would yield many resources and a drier climate and thinner atmosphere would be more …."

On the second kick to the shin her husband peters off, because no matter how promising his flight of inspiration might be, General Zod will never support – read: _allow_ – such an important venture if it is planned without his input.

"It is by no means decided, yet, but it might be a possibility," Lara finishes, and vows to herself that she will make Zod see the potential, too, for the more she thinks about it, the more she likes the idea.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Zod has no interest in settling on a dead rock in the middle of nowhere, naturally, even one that would need only slight tweaks by the World Engine to make it habitable and therefore stands a good chance of _staying _habitable in the long term.

Without the Genesis Chamber detected aboard the old scout-ship, the general would not have listened to _any_ arguments to abandon their search across the stars. He would have taken Kal aboard, with or without the latter's consent – watching Kal spar with Faora is a harsh object lesson for Lara on how easily the soldiers _could_ have taken (and kept) her son by force – and continued the relentless quest for a new Krypton without a second thought.

With a Genesis Chamber around, on the other hand, the only argument Zod will hear is access to the Codex – and that is exactly the point where Jor balks.

There is a shouting match.

Lara resists the urge to bash their heads together until some sense rattles back into place, and settles for a trick Lois has taught her: an ear-splitting whistle.

In the resultant shocked silence, she tells her gaping husband, "_You_ will tell General Zod where the Codex is or I will do it for you!

And _you_," she turns at the equally stunned general, "will listen very carefully to everything Jor has to tell you about the fourth planet and its potential for a colony!

And _I,_" she glares at both of the men in turn, "will be making the final decisions when it comes to using the Chamber! _I _am the one who specialized in the life sciences, after all!"

Lara can count, too, and simple numbers dictate that the Genesis Chamber plus the Codex is the only way to keep the Kryptonian race from dying out. As much as she agreed with Jor that Krypton's reproductive traditions had run into a dead-end in the final years of the planet – she would have hardly consented to bearing Kal in person otherwise – seeing her child again, grown and old enough to think about _children of his own_, has made her realize that she hasn't given up on life yet.

A new colony will need a healthy mix of all kinds of talents, and the Codex can deliver that. Doing away with the rigid determinism of the caste system, _that _should be the trick.

It's not _that _easy, of course, but in the end Jor makes an impressive pitch about how more distance from the yellow sun will lessen the impact of its radiation on new, growing generations while keeping the advantages in general, and that a drier climate and thinner atmosphere will feel more like home for those who remember it. A clever combination of asteroids snagged for mass from the nearby belt through phantom drive technology and the World Engine will establish a heavier gravity, to complete the set of Kryptonian conditions.

Lara meanwhile reinforces her stance that she and _not_ Jax-Ur will be in charge of the Genesis Chamber, and finds unexpectedly strong support among the soldiers.

"I don't want to see that man anywhere near a nursery!" Faora-Ur opinions, and Nam-Ek and even Tor-An nod in grim agreement.

Kal is taken aback and then intrigued by the fact that he has carried the Codex in his cells all this time, and then downright ecstatic at the news that he won't have to choose between his adopted homeworld and his birth parents. He is even cautiously thrilled to keep the rest of the Kryptonians around – her son _has_ formed some sort of bond with General Zod after all, if not quite as idolizing as Lara once feared.

And Zod … well, in the end the prospect of having a planet to protect again, instead of just searching for one, wins him over easily enough.


	12. Concessions

Kal-El insists on staying on his adopted planet, and as much as it grates against Zod's instincts to leave him behind, rationally the boy is better off there than underfoot among the professionals. There will be time enough to retrieve him once the delicate work of establishing a new habitable world, and then a colony, is done.

There are two things the general insists that Kal learns before he can be left alone, though: his mother tongue and some basic fighting forms.

The first the boy is quite agreeable with. The second, not so much.

"I don't see …," he starts, before Faora-Ul swipes his legs out from under him from behind, twists his arms behind his back, painfully, and grinds his face into the floor.

"No, you don't," she agrees amiably, twitches the arm-hold from pain to agony for a second and then steps over the groaning body.

Taking her place at Zod's right hand, she continues, "You have nearly twice my weight, twice my strength if you would apply yourself, and I will wipe the floor with you any time I feel like it."

Kal levers himself back to his knees, all wounded young male pride and indignation.

"That's not …" is all he gets out before Nam-Ek flattens him again with a boot between the shoulder blades, before he also steps over the boy and comes up to his general's other side. The huge frontline fighter doesn't bother with a verbal taunt, but the smirk on his face when he crosses his arms and looks pointedly_ down_ does the trick just as well.

Kal doesn't make the same mistake twice, that much Zod has to give to the boy. After the second knockdown Kal immediately rolled aside and then to his feet, back towards a wall and scanning the room for further attackers.

"An opponent that's quicker than me and one that is stronger. You want me to learn both," the boy concludes. "Why? It's not like there's anyone like that on Earth."

The general feels his eyebrows shoot up. "And Earth should be of concern, why exactly? It's hardly the center of the universe!"

Kal balks a bit more but Faora-Ul soon puts him to rights. The commander is a very exacting teacher, and Nam-Ek also provides more input than just a target tough enough to break the boy out of his unfortunate habit of always holding back. The big man has the patience of a mountain to go with the size, as Jor-El once put it, and that is a feature Faora – for all of her numerous qualities – somewhat lacks.

Not that the former aspect isn't an important part of the training, too: control is a vital element of any technique and among squishy humans it becomes vital in a different sense as well. However, restraint must be a conscious measure, easily set aside if necessary, and not a subconscious stumbling block.

The first time they manage to make Kal snap, Zod finds out what those red glimmers meant, back on the Kent farm. Nam-Ek sustains moderate burns along his shoulder and the side of his neck before Faora-Ul knocks out the boy, and the general decides to make regular exposures to the yellow sunlight a mandatory part of his soldiers' training regimen. A ranged weapon that cannot be disarmed is a boon no soldier must ignore.

The drawbacks do not occur to the general until he sees Lara coming for him with _literally _flaming eyes, her temper aroused over the fact that Zod had her baby boy beaten black and blue through the course of his training.

The fact that Kal has improved in leaps and bounds once he had realized the chance to stretch out his potential, to the point where the general would no longer be ashamed to see the boy stand among Krypton's recruits – and, more important to sooth his mother's ire, where Kal has something solid to fall back on, should the lucky happenstance of the yellow sun be one day not enough to decide a conflict – is barely sufficient to save Zod from his own singeing.

Friendship with Faora-Ul has brought Lara Lor-Van a long way from the easily subdued scientist of so long ago.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

As he has been the one to announce their presence to the humans officially, it is only appropriate that General Zod is the one to inform them of their further plans, too. Zod considered this a sound principle, but that was before he realized that this means he is supposed to deal with politicians.

Never one to admit defeat easily, he just grits his teeth and gets it over with.

This time, the general makes his entrance with Faora-Ul and Lara Lor-Van at his shoulders; an all-female escort is apparently considered less threatening among humans – nonsensical as the notion is – and the pair also represents science and military in equal standing.

Colonel Hardy awaits them at the designated landing place for the shuttle, gives a precise salute to the general and a wary greeting to Lara, followed by a greeting of the same wariness to the woman opposite her. This man at least does not seem to consider women harmless simply for their sex, and the way Commander Ul smirks at the human colonel, Zod thinks she might be quite pleased to see that.

Hardy, and a handful of human soldiers which the Kryptonian general decides to consider an honor guard, if tragically sloppy in the way they hold their weapons, accompany them for the last steps of the way.

The meeting place of this 'UN' is dominated by a blocky construction of glass and concrete with a row of colorful scraps of cloth suspended in front of it, so different from the austere elegance of the Council's tower on Krypton. Still, Zod holds little hope to find a fundamental difference in the assembly of politicians inside.

The assembly hall they are led to looks more familiar, but this only adds to the instinctive dislike. Even if the general had not already decided to keep this as short and blunt as he can manage, he would do so now.

Zod doesn't know what to call the few hundred humans before him, having left the minutia of organizing the meeting to Jor and Kal-El[1]; but as they are only the representatives of the group he actually means to address, it doesn't really matter.

"People of Earth," the Kryptonian general starts accordingly when he steps up to the lectern in front of the hall. "There have been rumors that we have come to conquer this planet, that I intend to rule all of humanity or to destroy it. That is untrue. I have no interest in ruling humanity, nor in ending its existence – if I considered it a threat, I would remove it, but it isn't one."

There are murmurs rolling through the assembly at that, and glares of outrage from some pompous-looking guys in gaudy uniforms, but Zod ignores them all.

"In fact, we have no interest in this planet, at all. The fourth planet from the sun is suitable for colonization, so that is where we will establish our new base."

The murmurs double in force, and the general feels his limited diplomatic patience fray.

"This is mere curtesy informing you of the fact," he reminds the humans sharply. "Your input is irrelevant in this decision as you have neither a presence on that planet nor the means to put one there – though my chief scientist assures me that your rovers will be a source of fascination for generations to come."

Zod has rolled his eyes at the giddy enthusiasm Jor-El displayed for something that looks like clumsy children's toys in the general's eyes, but that is neither here nor there. Lara thought that adding the tidbit would be a nice gesture towards the humans, an acknowledgement that they _have _made their first (toddling) steps towards the stars already. Judging by the speculative looks growing on some of these politicians' faces, Zod doesn't think it worked out quite like that.

"And before you try to be as 'generous' as to gift it to me," he continues, "remember that you do not have the means to stop me, either, should I decide that the third planet is more to my liking, after all."

There is a moment of dead silence following that statement, which is probably as smart as any assembly of politicians is ever going to act, and the general would quit now, while they are ahead. Lara is clearing her throat, though, softly, and so Zod throws the humans a final bone.

"Once the new base is established," he bites out, "there might be some exchange between our people. But that will be some time in the future, yet."

More murmurs erupt, and then quickly fall silent when Zod sends a final glare across the assembly before he turns on his heel and marches out. He is done with politics for now, and if he keeps an ear on the room behind him, well, that is only good sense.

The silence holds just until the doors have closed behind the general and his entourage, and then the plenum explodes into a riot of fearful indignation. Zod is almost convinced that this council is as incapable of sensible decisions as the one on Krypton was, when a piercing whistle cuts through the din.

"Thank you," a soft, accented voice says in the sudden quiet. "Now that I have your attention, I would like to mention the following: **we are not alone!** There is no denying the fact that there are other civilizations capable of interstellar travel out there, and likely with a technology that can destroy or at least depopulate whole planets, by accident or intent. Should any of those enter our solar system one day, I for my part would be very relieved to know that someone on their level is living in this system, too. If the dossier I read this morning is correct, General Zod is _very _protective of his own people, and anyone who wants to get to Earth will have to get past _his_ planet first …."

The decision is pretty much made after that, but politicians being politicians, it still takes most of the rest of the day until everyone has said his or her piece about it, too.

Not that Zod cares, one way or the other.

* * *

[1] There had been plans for him to address something called the 'Security Council' at first, Zod gathered, before the younger El jumped in and told his father to refuse, as this was a matter that concerned all of Earth. Since the general would have rather done a simple global broadcast as in his very first address to the planet's populace, but was turned down for some obscure diplomatic reason, he stayed out of the squabble from thereon.


	13. Epilogue

Choosing General Zod as their chief diplomat was one of Jor's more underhanded strokes of genius, Lara decides. Her husband would happily talk with humans of almost any description, the better to learn about all and any facets of their curious world, but the futility of his arguments with the Council has left Jor with no love for politicians.

As the one who has announced the Kryptonians to the humans officially, the general_ is_ a logical choice, though, and that he has acquired a personal liaison among the local military is very useful, too. Zod acknowledges as much, if rather grudgingly.

As a conciliatory gesture, Jor takes care of most of the organizational details, with Lara giving input when she deems it appropriate. Kal, to both their pleasant surprise, does the same. The first plan for an official address that Hardy's superior – a man whom Zod, for whatever reason, dislikes so much that he won't even say the name – proposes, intends for the Kryptonians to speak to something called the 'Security Council'. Kal is fiercely opposed to the idea.

The Kryptonians' plan to stay in the vicinity is a matter that concerns _all of Earth_, their son argues, not just 'the nuclear bigshots' as Kal puts it. There is a complex history behind the makeup of the aforementioned council, which Lara is not entirely clear on, except that sheer strength of arms and victory in some devastating war decades in the past seem to feature heavily. She can see how those might not be the best qualifications to represent a planet – for the same reasons as she is not going to let Zod go to Earth on his own – but the vehemence of the protest still surprises Lara. Her son considers the general's idea of another global broadcast a better solution, and the sight of Kal and Zod standing shoulder to shoulder gives Lara an unsettling feeling of déjà-vu for a moment.

Fortunately, as he is not part of the resolute front this time, Jor is on hand to turn things back on a more diplomatic track. This 'Security Council' is certainly out, he concedes, but some acknowledgement of local governmental structures should be observed, and surely there must be some other planetary representation of a more comprehensive kind?

The general washes his hands of the arrangements at this point, but Kal is in a more constructive mood and comes up with a suitable alternative. The United Nations General Assembly is apparently the most equitable representation of Earth's people, and so that is what Krypton, in the shape of General Zod, will address.

Between the three of them, the El family works out an acceptable framework for the speech, too – Zod would mutiny if they handed him a concrete script he had to follow – and Lara makes sure to be the one to brief the general. She loves her son and husband dearly, but the first is a bit too agreeable with Zod right now, and the second too aggravating.

The general listens to her recommendations with a look of wary tolerance, but when she mentions that a physically less imposing escort would go a long way to reduce the perceived aggressiveness of his entrance, Zod smirks and readily agrees to have Faora-Ul and Lara accompany him to Earth.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The actual address turns out about as brusque as could have been expected, but when Colonel Hardy comments the meeting with the UN general assembly with a clearly sarcastic, "Well, that went well!" Lara can't help but feeling, _yes, it did indeed._

The human colonel looks skeptical when she says so aloud, but grows more thoughtful when Lara explains her reasoning: the general might have been brutally blunt, but he didn't say a single word he didn't mean to keep to, and so humanity now knows where it stands. That some of the humans even picked up on the military caste _universal_ urge to protect, and consequently consider Zod's presence in their solar system to be a good thing in principle, is an unexpected boon.

What Lara _doesn't _mention aloud is the additional bonus: the more the humans – and especially those in power or with aspirations thereof – focus on the Kryptonian general, the better the chances for her son to slip under the radar, as the humans say. Kal has decided to stay on Earth with as low a profile as he can keep, but with the option to step in if a situation arises that will need Kryptonian powers to resolve.

That Zod has not mentioned him – or indeed any contact between their people except in some nebulous far future – shouldn't be much of a problem, Lois has assured Lara, mainly for two reasons.

_One:_ If Kal wears only his House colors while acting openly Kryptonian – quite unlike the armor Zod and his soldiers wear[1] – and he avoids any official association with the Kryptonian forces, there is a thing called 'plausible deniability'. Her son is also, for all that he looks fully adult, barely of age by Kryptonian standards, and if that fact were to be leaked if necessary – well, humans have a soft spot for youthful rebels against authority.

Especially, and there's the second reason: as long as Kal keeps to actions beneficial for everyone involved – read: doesn't take sides in any human conflicts – he can be the (perhaps literal) poster boy for the advantages the Kryptonians' presence brings. A visible carrot to Zod's more ominously mentioned stick.

Lara is not completely cognizant of all of the details – a few days of observation could never give her full comprehension of the human mind – but she trusts Lois' understanding of these things. The human woman has a very sharp mind and just enough confidence in herself to _make_ things work as she wants them to.

_And when it comes to creating a better future, what better start is there than that?_

* * *

[1] Though the general insisted that Kal is also fitted a set of armor of his own, for the most dire of circumstances.

* * *

A/N: That's it, for now. Cue Ms. Lane introducing the new guy at the office at the Daily Planet.

I will probably write a little more in this AU 'verse, though I cannot predict when the next part will come. But there's still a planet to remodel, a whole new society to be built, and you can bet that someone will take Zod's little speech the wrong way and go 'How dare that jumped-up alien declare us irrelevant?! I'll show him, I'll show them all!' Or else somebody's fragile ego will take offense at the way Jor is bending the laws of physics without really noticing – and why should he, physics have been bent that way on Krypton for millennia, and isn't it cute how the humans try to make them work otherwise? – and dig out the Kryptonite ... ;)


	14. Bonus feature: A little shift - sideways

A little what-if scenario that came into being because **_Tendragos_** left a comment that had my muse thinking 'Hey, that's a cute idea!' And then the current situation, that makes you long for family, did the rest. Rare fluffiness ahead.

* * *

It starts with the most innocuous of things.

A certain tightness when she slips into her bodysuit, that she hasn't felt in years. Hasn't felt since the very first days aboard the ship to be exact, and for a few days Lara just wonders at the oddity.

Then her analytical mind draws a correlation and stops her in her tracks.

She was barely weeks post-partum at the tribunal, her figure still rounded by the reserves her body had set aside to care for her baby. They served her well in the near-starvation right after their return to real-space, but even if times haven't been that bad for a while, Lara has been lean ever since. For those curves to return ….

The world whites out for a moment.

Then she tears off towards their makeshift infirmary, fumbles with the scanner she has put together herself, and finally forces her fingers steady enough to get a proper reading.

Then she stares at the results until someone roughly shakes her shoulders.

"Lara Lor-Van!" Faora-Ul hisses into her face. "What in Rao's radiant name is wrong with you?!"

Lara stares blankly at the worried soldier.

"I'm pregnant," she blurts helplessly. "I'm having a baby!"

Faora gives her an incredulous look and promptly starts to check her over for a head injury.

"You can't have a baby," the commander says matter-of-factly. "It's impossible. Babies don't just bud off adult people like plants do. You need a Genesis Chamber and the Codex and …"

"You need two people," Lara interrupts. "One male and one female. And then, well, babies pretty much _do _bud off."

The soldier stares at her skeptically. "How?"

Lara explains. She draws diagrams. And in the end, she has to admit, "We are likely not as fertile as our ancestors were in ages past; when Jor and I tried for Kal, we made many attempts, but I didn't fall pregnant until Jor developed a semi-artificial means of ensuring conception."

Lara smiles weakly. "But … the attempts – the purely natural attempts – they were pleasant. And a powerful way of affirming togetherness."

Faora, who has gone more and more stone-faced over the length of the explanation, tilts her head quizzically. "Togetherness?"

"As in the opposite of loneliness," Lara explains, and for a moment the tough soldier's front softens. For the handful of survivors of what was once an entire population, the universe is a_ very_ lonely place. And anything that can stave off the feeling is a precious gift indeed.

"So, you repeated the attempts?" Faora guesses. "For the togetherness and expecting failure for … _conception_?" The soldier carefully sounds out the foreign expression.

Lara nods and Faora frowns pensively. Then she nods decisively and Lara remembers belatedly that the commander is second only to General Zod when it comes to strategic planning, for Faora has the eyes of a _woman with a plan_.

"Will any male and female do?" the commander ascertains.

"Both have to be adults – and not too much into senescence, I believe. And … I don't know how far military modifications go," Lara advises. She doesn't say, the anatomical prerequisites might have been considered an irrelevant vestige of the past and removed as a way of streamlining the body.

Faora just gives her a sharp look.

"You have a medical scanner right here – use it on me," she orders.

This is a horrible – _horrible!_ – idea, but Lara does as told. She is reasonably sure that Zod won't strangle her baby at birth, by now, but he certainly won't take the news well, and some allies in crime would deflect part of his ire. _Especially if one of the babies were to be his …._

But, no. The notion is ridiculous. Even if Faora succeeded in her mad plan, she couldn't get that far before Lara's condition becomes obvious – the only reasons why it isn't obvious to everyone already, is that no one aboard except for Jor has ever seen a pregnant woman before, and her husband has no reason to suspect.

"It will likely take practice. Lots of practice." Lara warns.

The soldier just smirks. Endless repetitive training is one of the constants of the military caste's life, after all.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Lara is appalled – but not surprised – when Zod turns up with a nasty laceration across his hip a few days later, an implausibly contrite Faora hovering at his side and insisting that Lara uses her scanner on the general to ensure that there is no hidden internal damage.

There isn't.

The commander smiles predatorily at the news.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Lara has never been so grateful for the salvageable replicator contained in the second-to-last outpost they visited as she is these next few weeks. It is capable of creating not only armor – which is why Zod and his soldiers went through the hassle of dragging it aboard – but proper robes as well. In the snug undersuits, the bump would already be clear to see.

She had taken to wearing robes whenever her work allows for it _before_ her revelation, partly to counter the soldiers reveling in their new properly fitted armors, partly for the same feeling of nostalgia that motivated _them._

She takes to wearing them religiously now, but hasn't yet found the courage to inform her husband of the changed situation when Jor runs his hand across her belly one night and freezes.

"Lara?" he asks faintly, tone half shocked and half something else, and Lara is terrified of what the other half might be.

"Jor," she starts and doesn't know how to continue – and then her husband wraps both hands around the growing bump, his grip both gentle and protective.

"We're having another child," he says, more statement than question, and now his tone is wonder and determination.

"Yes. A little girl. She seems healthy so far," Lara confirms, and then they both start moving and end up in a tight embrace.

"Nobody knows," Jor says some minutes later, more statement than question again, but this time Lara has to shake her head.

"Faora caught me when I had just found out – I was a bit in shock at the point …."

"And she hasn't told Zod?" her husband asks, half incredulous, half impressed. But then his grip tightens and he growls, "When he finds out, he won't try anything – or any of them. I'll make sure of that!"

Lara hasn't smiled for real in weeks, but now her cheeks hurt for the wideness of her smile.

"I'm not worried about Zod," she declares – and finds that it has grown true. "Faora has a plan. But Jax-Ur, on the other hand …."

"Any of them!" Jor repeats, and there is _fire_ in his voice.

Her husband has abandoned Krypton and found a whole new world for their firstborn, and the intervening years have only honed his determination. He would burn down Krypton all over again for this child, and Lara knows that Jor is _capable_ of doing so, and the thought is more reassuring than it has any right to be.

She kisses him for that, she just can't help it.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

Nam-Ek, of all people, is the next to notice something off.

The huge man puts a hand against her belly one day, a clear question on his face, and the baby chooses this very moment to kick against his touch.

Under different circumstances, the way the immensely strong and fearsome frontline fighter jumps back, stumbles and ends up on his knees a few meters away, would be humorous. Now, Lara is terrified of what his next reaction will be.

It's to stay on his knees, lips moving soundlessly, and then he just gives up on finding words and gestures. Huge hands folded closely, he cradles something incredibly small and rocks it gently from side to side.

Lara swallows thickly. "Yes, a baby."

Nam-Ek smiles brightly enough to light up the entire corridor.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

By and large, that is the general reaction among the other soldiers, too, when they find out.

Getting chosen for parenthood has always been considered a high honor on Krypton, and even more so among the military caste. And after over a decade of the universe hammering down on them on how much they have lost, on how little is left of the people whose protection is the very purpose that flows through their veins, the heretic means of achieving said parenthood seems to have lost most of its abhorrence.

Zod is one of the last to find out – and Lara has not even actively avoided him the way she does with Jax-Ur – so whatever activity has Faora grinning smugly most of the time, it works to distract the general rather well. Lara has _firmly_ decided not to dwell too deeply on that question.

Zod is **_not _**happy about the news, but his rants about irresponsible behavior and brainless risk-taking – a vicious echo of an accusations Jor (and more rarely, Lara) have leveled at the soldiers before – sound oddly like concern about bringing a child into a hostile situation, in Lara's ears.

As the birth draws nearer, she even gets the weird impression that it is _her_ safety as much as the baby's that the general is worried about.

Jor laughs at her when she mentions it. And then he points out the obvious: as the leader of the military caste, Zod has the need to protect Krypton sunk into his bones even more deeply than any of the other soldiers, and the ship and the people aboard is all the general has left of Krypton.

No wonder if he gets a bit obsessive ….

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The birth is not quite as bad as Lara feared and, above all, over more quickly than the last one. Faora goes uncharacteristically pale when Lara says so aloud.

Her daughter – whom Lara has decided to name Na'ama, weeks ago – is smaller than her older brother, and perhaps even a tad premature, but strong enough to protest loudly against this cold, bright place she has been forced into.

Once cleaned and nursed she quiets quickly, though, and regards the new world with wide-eyed curiosity.

Jor gushingly pronounces her a born explorer and therefore scientist – and is promptly kicked sharply in the ribs by Faora, who has her hands full of inquisitive baby and is unwilling to free even an elbow for the chastisement, but is resourceful enough to find another way.

Na'ama coos with fascination at the sudden movement, and Faora's smirk promises a repeat performance, but Lara clears her throat, demands her daughter back, and sends off the commander to inform the rest of the ship. Faora huffs but does as told, if not without promising the baby solemnly that she will teach the little girl that move as soon as she can walk.

Lara can feel a headache coming. Jor looks a little hunted.

He is back to aggressively proud father when it's time to face off with Zod, who stoically does not ask to hold Na'ama even if he stares at her with hungry eyes, until Jor relents and hands the baby over.

From there on Na'ama makes the round among the soldiers, handled with reverence by each and every one of them, up to Nam-Ek looking like he's on the verge of falling to his knees again when he is handed the baby girl.

Na'ama takes an instant liking to the huge frontline fighter, intrigued by the fact that he can cradle her in one large hand and cup the other protectively around her.

When Jax-Ur impatiently demands to hold the baby, too, Nam-Ek turns his broad back at him and then reluctantly hands Na'ama over to Car-Vex, one of the soldiers who have automatically closed rank with the frontline fighter against the older scientist.

Tiny fists wave in protestation to the switch, trying to keep a hold on the much, much larger fingers, and Nam-Ek lets his arm get dragged from Car-Vex to Tor-An to Dev-Em before he finally retracts it when Jor-El retrieves his daughter.

Jax-Ur is left empty-handed, barely allowed a closer look while Na'ama lies in her father's arms, but with the glares of every single soldier aboard burning into his back, the scientist doesn't dare to protest.

As reassuring the obvious protectiveness towards her daughter is, it is just as hard to shoo out the soldiers when Lara tries to get some rest.

Zod is especially resistant to all hints – _and outright demands!_ – that he should leave, but just when Lara tries to gauge if she can barter cuddles with Na'ama for Nam-Ek bodily picking up his general, Faora grabs Zod's hand and places it against her belly.

The general goes pale enough that Lara wonders for a moment if he might faint, and offers no further resistance when his second-in-command drags him from the room.

By the time Na'ama is six months old, she will gain a little playmate, Lara learns later.

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

By the time an ancient scout-ship's signal leads them to Kal-El, he has two further siblings.

Plus, a grand total of seven other children burning to meet Na'ama's, Alura's and Dor-El's oldest brother.

The poor boy is a little overwhelmed.


End file.
